Thursday, 22 May 2014

The Gretna Green disaster caused the greatest loss of life that has ever occurred in an accident on the railways in the UK.
224 passengers and 3 servants were killed. 242 passengers and 4 servants were injured.
Most of the passengers on the train were territorial soldiers from the 1/7th Leith Battalion, The Royal Scots who were heading for Gallipoli.
You can read the full details of the report by Lieutenant-Colonel Druitt into the double collision which occurred between passenger trains at Quintinshill, near Gretna in our Parliamentary Papers collection.
The reference for the report is P.P. 1914-16 Cd 8114
Details of the numbers killed and injured are listed in a further report -
1916 [Cd. 8301] General report to the Board of Trade upon the accidents that have occurred on the railways of the United Kingdom during the year 1915.
This collection is available digitally via our subscription to the Proquest House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database. This is freely available to readers in Scotland with a National Library of Scotland readers ticket.

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